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10 out of 10: The Love-Hate Relationship Of Britain's Biggest-Selling Papers And Call of Duty

Reports in the British press on the recent tragic events in Newtown, Connecticut have highlighted a confusing ambivalence on the topic of video games in general, and Activision’s world-conquering Call of Duty franchise in particular.

The Sun, owned by Rupert Murdoch‘s News International, is Britain’s biggest-selling daily newspaper. Every day, more than 2.5 million readers buy a copy to enjoy its mix of hard-hitting news, celebrity gossip and scantily-clad women.

Despite a recent phone hacking scandal affecting its publisher News International, The Sun has if anything consolidated its power by launching a Sunday edition, replacing News International’s News of the World, which was felt to have tainted its brand irreparably in that scandal.

When The Sun speaks, in short, Britain rarely has much choice but to listen. And The Sun has squarely placed Activision’s Call of Duty franchise in the crosshairs in its reporting of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, providing pictures of the weapons used and relating them to the game which the perpetrator apparently played:

They are the sort of guns that feature heavily in games like Call Of Duty – in which players take on the role of soldiers and shoot dead scores of enemies. The latest version of the game, called Black Ops II, is a huge worldwide hit and will be on the Christmas wish list of millions of youngsters.

A child psychologist also provides a perspective on the dangers of such video games saying,”Video games like Call Of Duty can lead children to become more immune [sic - presumably "inured']to violence and death.”

It seems, then, that the message is clear – Call of Duty is a potentially dangerous, addictive product which must be treated carefully – and that the millions of youngsters who will be receiving Black Ops 2 are both in danger and a potential danger themselves. However, there is another side to Call of Duty - as a hugely enjoyable and desirable product, promising an “epic” experience, and inspiring hints like, “Use the SMR semi-automatic assault rifle — great accuracy and highest damage in its class.”

From this perspective, the creators of the Call of Duty franchise are working tirelessly on a great entertainment product:

PRODUCING a follow-up to the bestselling console game of all time is enough to strike fear into the best creative minds on the planet. But Call of Duty: Black Ops II developers Treyarch insist they were never fazed by the prospect. The latest instalment of the CoD series was released this week looking to emulate the 2010 Black Ops which sold more than 25 million copies worldwide And the early signs suggest Treyarch have more than dealt with the weight of expectation.

Shock charges will allow players to buy a little extra time to deal with enemies, with the grenade-style weapons stunning them for long enough to gun them down. Similarly, the Energy Wave Turret blasts enemies with a wave of heat, pinning them down while the player picks them off.

Although tonally awkward, this seems roughly consistent – children (up to college age) should not play Call of Duty, but for adults it is an excellent piece of entertainment. Except for the note in the reporting of the suicide of a teenager who had played Call of Duty with his stepfather, “Earlier this year Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik had claimed he had ‘trained to kill’ his 77 victims by playing the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare game. He said it helped him ‘develop target acquisition’ using ‘holographic’ technology.”

Anders Breivik was 33 years old. The newspaper’s more recent reportage also name checked Breivik, along with Mohammed Merah (23), a multiple murderer who died after a pitched gun battle with French police this year and also played Call of Duty. It is not mentioned that Breivik trained with actual firearms, or that Merah was a former Taliban militant, and also played Need for Speed and watched The Simpsons.

It seems, then, that Call of Duty is a clear and present danger, regardless of age or other factors. However, it is also a sales success to be reported in glowing terms, “The latest Call of Duty computer game trailer is soaring online after clocking up more than 7 MILLION views in just 48 hours. Games fans have been flocking to YouTube to view the official trailer [..] for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.”

But also a safe haven for terrorists to plan their next atrocity, providing both a training ground and a way to talk without observation by intelligence services, having provided nothing more than an email address, credit card details and a constantly monitored IP address:

The terrorists choose incredibly realistic “first person games” where the controller works through a complex simulation of war scenarios, carrying out missions and battling enemy fighters. Gamers choose different styles of play and missions — from planting bombs to fighting one-on-one. Then they enter the lobby and invite their friends to join in. Call of Duty addicts can even join “clans” — groups who regularly play together. The games use a password-protected log-on to keep users’ identities secret. The system was designed so players anywhere on the globe can get together for harmless fantasy battles. But security chiefs now fear plotters are set to turn those fantasies into reality.

Conclusion

There is a kind of dark comedy to be found in these constant tergiversations, although the subject matter is far from humorous. And The Sun is by no means the only media source which struggles to keep its ducks in a row. For example, the Daily Mail, which is more often cited by American media because the absence of The Sun’s traditional topless model on page 3 makes it look altogether more reputable, has also reported on all the killings mentioned above and taken pains to mention Call of Duty - the most recent game in which series won a 5-star rating from… the Daily Mail, “It’s mesmeric watching Harper, David Mason’s battle-hardened teammate – suddenly be hit by panic and fear – his eyes widening and body tensing up. Then seeing his cheekiness and swagger when chatting up a woman later in the game. These are real people – which makes the often graphic deaths that much more shocking when you witness them.”

We are seeing here the slow and awkward turning circle of traditional print media empires. Traditionally, the readership of these magazines – middle-aged working and middle class men – did not play video games, nor did the staff. They were an easy target for moral panics, because they were an equally unknown and equally terrifying quantity. And, of course, moral panics sell newspapers.

Now, however, middle aged readers might be gamers themselves. Meanwhile, a younger group of writers are moving through the system. These writers largely have few illusions about the likelihood of video games making them killers, having seen their own peer group play video games without at least this ill effect.

So, a strange dual world exists, where the front pages strongly imply that the same entertainment products being enthusiastically promoted elsewhere are little more than murder simulators. It is possible that over times these worlds will become reconciled. More likely, however, the next generation will fulminate against the next wave of entertainment products, and was nostalgic about the lost days when games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 taught young people values.

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Just to clear up a minor point, The Sun is traditionally aimed at and read by the lesser educated and the lower classes of UK society, and would appear to be equally favoured by both sexes.

Very few people with any kind of formal education take that “Newspaper” seriously at all, and it does not wield any great influence with the middle and upper classes. (Well, as much as we can define those classes in the UK these days.)

You’d think… but actually, the Sun’s rate card indicates that, although the majority of readers are what we used to call CDEs, a considerable number of ABC1s read it. And, of course, its readership size – 2.5m+ copies means more than 5 million readers, majority male but with a large number of women also, before even considering the Web – means that a lot of ABC1s who need to know how the working classes behave, buy or vote have to pay attention to it – which is one reason why Prime Ministers have fairly consistently sought to get it onside, culminating in David Cameron’s lols and country suppers.

The Sun and The Mail (which appeals to a higher-earning demographic, generally) represent a vast psephological chunk of the nation – and the Mail’s website is now also the most visited news site in the world. It might be comforting to think they have no influence, but…

Fascinating. I did not actually know the hard numbers, I was making assumptions based on a lifetime of anecdotal evidence.

What I should have stated, more simply, is that in wider society there is a serious credibility-gap wherever The Sun is concerned, even among its readers. I felt that this is something that your article does not convey to non-Brits quite as well as it maybe should, with its references to “Hard-hitting news” and “Britain listening” and all.

Well, I think the central thesis of the article – that the British press, or certain parts of it, are simultaneously strongly implying that video games in general (and especially Call of Duty) both create and facilitate homicidal rampages – and that this effect is not limited to children – and at the same time attending press junkets, interviewing their creators and recommending that their readers purchase them – probably casts a particular light on the text there – as does the tricolon ending with “scantily-clad women”. I know that it is often said that only Britons understand irony, but I disagree strongly with that as a generalisation…

The extent to which people who read the Sun (or the Mail) are actually influenced or guided by its content is an interesting question, but regardless we’re talking about a total readership that dwarfs readership of any other British newspaper. Honestly, the people who read these papers, pungent editorials and all, _are_ “wider society”, whether we metropolitan elites like it or not.

Of course, any statements that could be made about the understanding of irony would apply equally so as to its delivery… ;p

On the topic of the British Tabloids and their attitude towards gaming, yes, it does seem rather at odds with itself as of late. To perhaps better illustrate what may be going on behind the scenes, I recall a fascinating anecdote by one of the old PC Zone crew on the subject of a visit to the Daily Mail’s offices, where the topic of their attitude towards gaming was brought up.

If I recall correctly, the PC Zone writer (I think it may have been Jon Blyth) discovered that many of the people who had been writing these scare stories were gamers themselves and none of them actually believed any of the things that they were writing, but editorial policy was clear on the matter, and they had a job to do.

Wish I could find the article, if only to jog my own memory as to what was actually written.

I’ll relate a story regarding the Sun that speaks volumes about its journalistic standards.

A few years back there were sightings of strange lights near an English town. The papers screamed ‘ALIEN INVASION!’. UFO investigators discovered they were party lanterns released from a wedding party – something it took them all of five minutes to discover as the party had called up the local airport to make sure they would not cause any problems.

One of the investigators happened to run into a ‘journalist’ from the Sun in the area, and naturally asked what he was doing. The conversation went like this;

Heh sorry, you’re right. I’m going to chalk me missing the tone up to tiredness, reading a lot of really ignorant articles recently and mixing alcohol with anti-biotics. If facepalming wasn’t a reference out of style for almost half a decade I’d make a non roundabout reference to it

No problem! I think like many Britons I get drier and drier the worse the world gets (and the treatment of this tragedy by the press has been pretty appalling – there are stories of reporters ringing doorbells demanding interviews, and some truly sickening photographs of families at moments of terrible sadness being pasted in) – very British, but possibly a bit hard to parse when one is not at one’s best.